By Maggie Angst and Lindsey Holden | Sacramento Bee
Even in deep-blue California, Democrats continue to face an uphill battle to pass legislation overhauling prisons, sentencing and policing.
This struggle was on display during the final days of this year’s legislative session, when lawmakers could not find the votes to pass a handful of significant criminal justice reform bills and resorted to pulling the measures without taking them to the Senate or Assembly floors. This left some legislators frustrated and discouraged.
“California is not as progressive as we want the rest of the world or the rest of the country to believe,” said Sen. Steven Bradford, D-Gardena, after he tabled a bill to reduce racial profiling by prohibiting certain kinds of police stops.
“We tend to continue to lean toward law enforcement and the lock-them-up attitude than real police reform and criminal justice reform that this country and this state truly need,” he added.
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